401k and economy question

**Dave19642006** · 10-09-2008, 06:23 PM

Everyone that has a 401k what would you do or better yet would like to do with it?

What would you do to fix the economy?

**Bobber** · 10-09-2008, 06:30 PM

I don't think the economy is broken. The lending sector has problems, but the rest economy seems good.

I'm riding it out. I've got a long time until I retire.

**brianhos** · 10-09-2008, 06:32 PM

Let this thing crash, so we can actually get it going when it is done instead of trying to "save" natural cycles with government intervention.

**isuno1fan** · 10-09-2008, 06:44 PM

riding it out myself. best thing you can do at this point.

**Bobber** · 10-09-2008, 06:58 PM

The other thing I find encouraging is that we may finally be moving to less of a credit based economy. I think that will be a good thing long term.

**AIT** · 10-09-2008, 06:59 PM

I'm throwing away statements before looking at them. Not much else I can do.

**Covenant Clone** · 10-09-2008, 07:00 PM

Originally Posted by brianhos

Let this thing crash, so we can actually get it going when it is done instead of trying to "save" natural cycles with government intervention.

Exactly, the market always finds a way to correct itself. Keep the government out of it and let the correction happen. The faster the natural correction happens and the more the government stays on the sideline the faster we can get things turned around, and when it does turn around the people that remained calm and stayed the course will reap huge benefits. Just think of it this way, everything is on sale right now. Who doesn't love a good sale.

**cytech** · 10-09-2008, 07:03 PM

I have been thinking it might be a good time to take some loses and sell off some stocks and doing some day trading to make up the difference.

**CloneIce** · 10-09-2008, 07:04 PM

I'd say that depends on how close you are to retirement, how much attention you want to pay to your stocks, etc. I am no expert at all but I have been talking to as many people as possible lately to gain some insight.

I made a couple moves last night... but I am in a different situtation right now since my company just got bought out. So i have my old 401K sitting there with no more contributions to it until January when we are able to merge it into our new 401K or put it in whatever. So I took all my investments in that one and put them in "safer" investments, since the stock market certainly isn't going to rebound in the next couple of months, and I'd rather save what I have in it then lose more of it with everything going on.

Lots of people I work with (myself included) put our new 401K contributions into a safe money market fund.... I plan on keeping it there, watching the situation.... and when the market completley bottoms out I will put that money back into more aggressive stocks. I dont want to just lose that nice company match because I think it is going to say ugly for awhile.

My brother took all of his money out of the stock market 1 year ago when it was at its peak and put it in CDs and other safe places.... everyone told him he was crazy to do that, now he has tens of thousands more than he would have if he left it in.

**kilgore_trout** · 10-09-2008, 07:18 PM

hard to sell now but i don't know.

i think i'll sell all of my Target stock and start shopping at wal-mart?

sorry, brianhos.

**benjay** · 10-09-2008, 07:18 PM

Originally Posted by Dave19642006

Everyone that has a 401k what would you do or better yet would like to do with it?

If you were going to take your money out of stocks, the time to do it would have been a year ago.

**bfnnhn** · 10-09-2008, 07:28 PM

you tell us all when it bottoms out, nobody over at Wharton seems to know when that'll be but I'm counting on you......in the meantime I'll buy my straw hats in the winter and reap the fruits of this incredible buying opportunity

**Ms3r4ISU** · 10-09-2008, 07:37 PM

Safe is okay, but very little return. Remember that low markets can be the best time to buy and invest. You're using dollars, but buying shares. And when -- yes, when -- the markets go up, your shares are worth more.

For now, I'm looking at my statements with mild interest, and remembering that it's all just on paper for now. My accounts generally are still worth more than I personally paid into them.

**Bobber** · 10-09-2008, 07:41 PM

Used to be a market timer, but got burned enough and read enough to figure out that's not a good strategy. Dollar Cost Average invest and never sell.

Oh and while I agree it's a long shot, the market could be back by December.

**Cybadboy** · 10-09-2008, 07:54 PM

Unfortunately a government bailout is the only option. One of the major problems right now, outside of the is the housing market, is that that companies that rely on loans to fund their inventories no longer have them. So in order to fix this we need to fix the lenders. I do not want the government to bail out the lenders but it is absolutely necessary.